Galton

Tiling at the Alhambra (source)

In his high-vaulted, narrow Gothic den, Ewen Jones ruminates darkly. A torrent of savage images flow through his occipital lobe: four-hundred pound men microcephalically deadlifting two tons of steel; fertility-goddess-shaped prostitutes gyrating voluminously up and down Trafalgar Square; two cockney orangutans smoking meerschaum pipes while discussing Spinoza’s Ethics; crickets stuck for years on the waiting list for MAID, thirsting for the sweet release of death. The mad and sundry citizens of greater humanity’s near-inevitable eugenic future. Of them, Ewen needs to warn the world. Of them, Ewen needs to write.

Ewen Jones is the 21st century’s greatest science fiction writer. He is Australian, but not by choice. Though he has never studied philosophy, he is a successor to that august tradition of Australian materialists who have been molded directly by the ecological facts of the land down under (as per David Malet Armstrong: “the strong sunlight and harsh brown landscape of Australia force reality upon us”). Having been brought into life without his consent, he has long pined for the perpetual peace of annihilation. Perth’s many sumptuous beaches fill him with fear. The sight of a sunshined piña colada is enough to have him begging on his knees for samsāra (and if that’s too much to ask for, vināśa will do just fine). This pained consciousness drove him to finish a PhD at Monash University in quantum chromodynamics; and now it spurs him on to write science fiction. Ewen is widely beloved for his ability to deftly incorporate insights from quantum field theory into his stories about memory and love and stuff like that.

Ewen puts on Bill Evans’ album Alone Again and Again. He settles in front of his MacBook and gets to work.

Greg Gribble, a chartered accountant and amateur slob, slavishly walks into the office of the family eugenicist. Printed eyelevel on the door to the inner sanctum are the words, “OFFICE of Dr. Faust Mengele, PhD.” Something about this strikes Mr. Gribble as vaguely ominous but he cannot put his finger on it.

“Quack!”

Mr. Gribble is startled. He looks down between his feet where there is a handsome mallard holding a clipboard. The mallard is waddling unevenly because he has a third foot sticking out of the top of his head, which seems to be interfering with his proprioception. He speaks:

“Ahem, excuse me. You must be Mr. Gribble. The good doctor is busy at the moment, and he will see you shortly. It will just be five minutes, so please take a seat.”

Once he’s finished spastically nodding and apologizing, Mr. Gribble obeys the duck. He sits down next to a stack of magazines. He peruses them for a moment, but decides ultimately he does not want to read this month’s issue of Le Pédophile Transhumaniste. Mr. Gribble looks over at the mallard, who by pecking vigorously at his lunch (peas and oats floating in water) is splashing water onto his nametag, which reads “Arthur Canard, Esq.” Finally, Mr. Gribble works up the courage to speak.

“Say, um, Arthur?”

“Yes, Mr. Gribble?” says Arthur between pea-splashes.

“I’ve always, um, wondered, um… What is it like to be a duck?”

This gets Arthur pondering. He even takes a break from his peas and oats in water. “It’s pretty nice. I like being able to communicate in a language capable of recursion. I also enjoy sports gambling and listening to the Joe Rogan Experience. I am sad about having this extra leg protruding from my head though. It hurts a lot.”

“Yes, I’m quite confused about why that is there. Did Dr. Faust put that there on purpose? Or is it an unfortunate byproduct of the uplift process?”

“Quack! No, the good doctor put it there for a very good reason. It causes me pain, but it causes him even more pleasure; therefore it is net good for the world. It follows that he had a moral obligation to put this leg on my damn duck head,” explains Arthur before dunking his whole beak in his lunch.

This stark logic was a bit devastating to Mr. Gribble, for it seemed to be an air-tight reductio that challenged the very core of his belief in naive utilitarian calculus, which is the sort of thing he and his fellow chartered accountants enjoy discussing around the water cooler.

An impossibly-German voice shouts from beyond the door, “BRING IN HERR GRIBBLE!”

Arthur walks Mr. Gribble into Dr. Faust’s office, which is decorated with twenty oscilloscopes of various sizes and a centrifuge the size of a pickup truck. There are two French waiters in the corner of the room operating a specialty copper press to prepare the blood-sauce for Dr. Faust’s lunch of canard à la presse. For some reason, the sight of this alarms Arthur, who hurriedly waddles back to his meal — leaving Mr. Gribble and Dr. Faust to inspect each other.

“Herr Gribble, you are looking particularly dysgenic today. You seem to be even shorter than last I saw you. The motility of your spermatozoa has proved highly disappointing. You may have the weakest cum of any man I have ever serviced.”

“S-sorry.”

“Fear not! The gametogenesis procedure was nevertheless successful. Moreover, your wife’s sperm has proved highly potent. We now have one hundred million zygotes to select from. Herr Gribble, we will now begin the selection process.”

“S-shouldn’t my wife be here?”

Dr. Faust absentmindedly sips a bit of duck blood from a shot glass. “What for?”

“Ah… nevermind.”

Dr. Faust sits down and pulls up on an enormous computer screen a visualization of the choice of zygotes. They will be winnowing this selection down and down and down, until they arrive at the last and best zygote. The optimal child.

The doctor begins his interrogation.

“So, Herr Gribble, which sex do you want for your child?”

“E-either works.”

“Okay, then, let’s put down ‘male’. That’s the safer choice. I’ve already taken the liberty of removing the zygotes at elevated risk of the top 1000 most common genetic diseases. What would you like your son’s life to be like?”

“I think I’d like him to be happy and healthy. That’s it really. A bit smarter and better looking than me would be good too.”

One of the French waiters chimes in, “and taller too Docteur.”

Dr. Faust agrees, “Yes taller, certainly taller. Well all of that is most reasonable, but not optimal. Let’s review the details in order. Now, I can certainly guarantee you that your son will have an IQ of at least 175. We can bump that up to 180 if you’re willing to be flexible, legs-wise. If we omit the legs, we can partially atrophy the cerebellum and redirect some of that developmental energy to the frontal…”

“Um, D-Dr. Faust, sir, I would like my son to have legs.”

“Yes, a sensible choice. It is much easier to engage in Das Heightmogging when you have legs. On that subject, how tall would you like him to be? Six foot eight inches, I assume?”

“A-ah! That’s really quite tall. I’d like him to be taller than me by at least a little bit. Really anything above five foot eight sounds great to m-me…”

Dr. Faust shakes his head. The waiters stop their work to be disgusted too. One of them says, “Monsieur Gribble, what you have just now said is pas très logique. If your son is five foot nine, how can he be un moggeur? Moreover, you are not interrogating the matter philosophically. If you say, ‘Docteur, make my son five foot nine’, logically what is to stop you from choosing five foot ten, or five foot eleven, or six foot? Indeed why not six foot eight?”

Some drool leaks from Mr. Gribble’s mouth, and he retorts, “Well I don’t see why exactly that follows logically —”

Dr. Faust cuts in: “Bitte, Herr Gribble, leave die Logik to us. You are clearly an imbecile. Now, I think we’ve covered most of it… Oh yes, I will modify your son to have biofluorescent skin to absorb ultraviolet radiation. It’s amazing how we have all this incredible genetic technology, but we’ve somehow never figured out how to fix the hole in the ozone layer. Anyways, your son will glow slightly pink when he’s outside. It’s better this way, instead of tweaking his melanin; we wouldn’t want anyone thinking he is ein Schwarzer.”

“Well that wouldn’t be a p-problem, as my wife and I are a mixed-race couple.”

“Yes I know, Herr Gribble. I’ve already addressed that problem earlier today. Gut, gut… okay, I’ve narrowed down to the optimal zygote. Would you like to talk to your son?”

“W-what?”

“You can talk to him now if you like. We have quite an accurate simulation prepared for you. Here, I’ll pull him up now at twenty years old. Look up at the screen. Tadaa!”

On the screen, the image of a young man pops up. He is incredibly beautiful and serene. Mr. Gribble thinks he looks like the popular handsomeness streamer “Clavicle”, except even moggier. He looks not particularly thrilled to be alive.

“Hi dad.”

“H-hey son. How are ya? Uh… how are you doing, in there? I didn’t expect to meet you. I didn’t even name you.”

“My name is Galton.”

“Well that’s a beautiful name. Galton Gribble. My son… my son… Say, are you okay Galton? You don’t look uh… you look real sad, frankly.”

“I am not sad. It occurs to me that existence is coextensive with suffering, and that the optimal existence is non-existence. I did not consent to be brought into existence.”

“A-ah. Well, do you not want me to bring you into existence? I don’t want to be a pushy dad.”

“I’d prefer not to exist.”

“O-okay. It was nice to meet you in any case. I won’t bring you into existence.”

“Thanks.”

Dr. Faust deletes Galton’s zygote. His waiters finished preparing the canard à la presse, which he has been devouring ravenously while Greg and Galton Gribble had their little chat. With blood leaking from the sides of his mouth, Dr. Faust says, “Well, Herr Gribble, perhaps let’s pick a slightly less optimal zygote. Next!”

Ewen Jones rereads his work, and is greatly pleased by it. He really thinks he’s done justice to his subject, and has drawn out some pretty interesting philosophical quandaries for his readers to contemplate. He is also quite chuffed about how subtle the whole satirical angle of the piece is.

He rereads his work again, and stands up explosively.

“Yay!” he exclaims.